Rising Music Stars Frank, Kieran, Jenna, Josh of Bleach Lab On The Five Things You Need To Shine In The Music Industry

An Interview With Ming Zhao

Music (in our opinion) represents the best of society’s ability to create. So in that sense, it’s vitally important that music embodies positive progression. If music (or any creative medium) fails to do this, it will become a relic of the past that ultimately fails to adapt with the times.

As a part of our interview series with leaders, stars, and rising stars in the music industry, we had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Frank, Kieran, Jenna, Josh of Bleach Lab.

Bleach Lab proudly call themselves perfectionists. In the four years between forming and emerging with their debut EP, the South London quartet slowly accrued members hand-picked to contribute to their ever-changing, experimental vision. “We were really intent on making sure that before we put our name out there and put ourselves out into the world, we were certain of what we wanted people to see us as,” they say.

Forming in 2017 as a duo of bassist Josh Longman and guitarist Frank Wates, they then recruited vocalist Jenna Kyle before reaching their final form at the start of 2021 with the recruitment of drummer Kieran Weston. A few months after that, they introduced themselves fully to the world with debut EP ‘A Calm Sense Of Surrounding’, a record that pitted grungier textures against dreamy shoegaze tones and introduced a yin and yang that would define the band’s output to date.

This vision has remained at the core of Bleach Lab’s philosophy, even if the genres they’ve played with have changed over time, moving from grungier sounds towards something closer to dream pop. Later in 2021, they returned with second EP ‘Nothing Feels Real’, five songs packed to the rafters with widescreen, dreamy noise that pushed their sound forwards and continued the experimentation that exists at the heart of the project.

This brings the band to their third EP ‘If You Only Feel It Once’, out this November, as their first release since signing to Nettwerk. It’s a record that looks back in its lyrical content, but firmly forwards in its music. Weston explains: “With ‘If You Only Feel It Once’, we wanted to keep the ’90s sounding influences of EP2, but delve deeper into poppier, more modern sounds. I think ‘If You Only Feel It Once’ bridges that distinction brilliantly.” Wates adds: “The new EP feels like us sounding out how we feel about making pop music at the moment.”

From the first urgent strums of opening track ‘I Could Be Your Safe Place’, ‘If You Only Feel It Once’ flows like water with delicious melodies and their most instant, sugary offerings yet. Elsewhere across its five tracks, they take influence from the dreamy pop melodies of Alvvays (on ‘Take It Slow’), create gigantic, glistening singles (‘Obviously’) and end with the avalanche of noise that closes the EPs title track and last song with a deeply exciting glimpse into their future.

Across the three EPs, the band have experimented without restriction, dipping their toes into unfamiliar genres to fully work out what kind of band they are, what works best for them, and where to go next. This playful experimentation and growth of sound all leads towards a debut album, which the band have been thinking about since their inception. “We’re all very conscious about not making music that just replicates or sounds exactly the same as what we’ve done before,” Wates reflects. “There have been a lot of quite big jumps in terms of influences and sound between all of our releases, and I think that’s an important part of our creative process.”

This melting of sounds and constant experimentation also informs the producers the band have worked with. On ‘Nothing Feels Real’, they brought in Britpop icon Stephen Street (Blur, The Smiths) to add swathes of ’80s and ’90s sounds to the songs, while ‘If You Only Feel It Once’ saw them turn to Duncan Mills, whose credits include Peace, The Vaccines and Jake Bugg.

While in their instrumentation, Bleach Lab are always striving to break new ground and be constantly on the move sonically, their lyrics — especially on their upcoming third EP — are instead concerned with striving for stillness and balance. “There’s a lot of themes of feeling at home and finding your feet as an adult,” Kyle explains. “‘If You Only Feel It Once’ is about the way that I feel at home with my family and the journey that I’ve been on since I’ve left home. I still want the nostalgia of being at home and the comfort of that.” Expanding upon the lyrical meaning behind the new EP, Kyle says that the songs see her “searching for the nostalgic feeling of home” while “trying to find it in other people and places.” Also of finding your way in life, navigating relationships and friendships and as you grow, realising which ones weren’t for you and which ones you are better off without.”

Taking more time in the studio for the new release also furthers this rich, layered sound, with Weston pinpointing the time recording as vital to the new EP’s makeup. “We spent a lot of time exploring synth sounds and adding extra production bits, which meant we left the studio with huge tracks that in actual fact needed stripping back a bit,” he says. “It was really important to us that the quintessential Bleach Lab guitars and Jenna’s vocals weren’t lost, but once we found that mix, we ended up with an EP that bridged the gap between nostalgia and pop really well.”

It’s through this dichotomy of modernism and nostalgia that Bleach Lab shine, pulling from the past while not trying to replicate it, and mining nostalgic feelings while not being a purely retro band. “We’re good at doing something nostalgic but making it feel new,” Longman says. “People listen to it, and it’s a sound they know but have never heard before. It’s still brand new.”

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit about your “origin story”. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?

Frank: So Josh and Jenna grew up in Bucks, (they met at college), Frank grew up in South London and Kieran in Lincolnshire. The band first formed (sort of) when Josh and Frank met at the start of 2017, with Jenna joining later that year. Things were super slow for the first few years and the band went through a bunch of drummers before meeting Kieran at the start of 2021. We have casually referred to that as the inception of Bleach Lab 2.0 and we feel that’s when we really started to get going.

Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?

Frank — I was put off being a musician for years. My father is a musician and I’ve always had a very immediate example of how tough a life it can be. The delay to get started with everything explains why I’m older than the other guys. Spent a lot of my early 20’s wasting time with half-hearted attempts to try something else. But I love playing guitar and I surround myself with music in all aspects of my life, so I had to give in ultimately.

Kieran — I had the exact opposite experience. Music has been part of my life since I was born; ever since I can remember I’ve been going to my stepdad’s gigs, sneaking behind the kit after sound check, and helping him pack down afterwards. Though I now see how tough a life being a musician can be, my early experiences never showed me that. I’ve met so many people, learnt so much, and made the best memories all thanks to music, so I have always known that this is what I want to do. Since I first sat behind the drums at 7 I have thrown myself at everything and anything musical in order to do so.

Jenna — I was also brought into a relatively musical family. I was put into a variety of music lessons from a young age, starting with the recorder, of course. But moving on to Clarinet, Harp and vocal lessons after that. The vocal lessons were where my passion and drive to make something out of a music career began. I wasn’t too fussed with school, and I focused mainly on any music related opportunities that came my way, before I went on to study Music Performance at college and later University. That solidified to me that a career could be made out of my voice.

Josh — I was never brought up in a musical family. My parents listened to a lot of music, but nothing made me want to be a musician or get involved in the industry at a young age. I picked up a bass aged 17 when some friends from school asked me to play with them. I loved the instrument and played it every day to get better and loved the comradery of writing music. Once I realized that writing music was a form of therapy after the passing away of my father things really made sense. I just hope to help others with music as it unknowingly helped me.

Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

Kieran — I think that one of the funniest things about us is the fact that I didn’t actually meet Jenna for the first 4 months I was in the band. I met the guys at a few rehearsals that Jenna wasn’t able to make it to, so they really threw caution to the wind in asking me to join. We actually wrote half of our 2nd EP without meeting, when we were forced to write in isolation during lockdown.

It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Kieran — I’ve made a fair few mistakes throughout my career, but in this band in particular, the worst came on my first gig with them. We play with backing tracks that I trigger at the back and during our gig at Moth Club 2021 I triggered the wrong backing track, so started playing a completely different track to the rest of the band. That’s embarrassing even once, but I did it 3 times… It’s a wonder they stuck with me.

Frank — Leaving my pedal board on the floor of a festival carpark wasn’t particularly clever. It got hit by a car just hours before we were supposed to play our first mainstage performance at Truck festival. I had to ask the sound guys to allow me to check it was working between acts. It was all fine in the end but safe to say I won’t be making that mistake again.

What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?

We spent the first half of this year writing and recording our third EP which is out on 4th November. So that’s been keeping us busy. We have some more things happening behind the scenes at the moment but having to keep hush hush about that for now! Let’s just say 2023 is shaping up to be a big year for us.

We are very interested in diversity in the entertainment industry. Can you share three reasons with our readers about why you think it’s important to have diversity represented in music, film, and television? How can that potentially affect our culture?

Such an important subject. It feels like things are moving in the right direction but very slowly.

We believe massively in getting multiple perspectives on whatever we are working on, be it new recordings, our live show, songwriting etc. We feel it’s an integral part of our creative process. So in a similar way, greater diversity in music just means there is a richer, deeper range in perspectives and everything becomes better informed.

Culture should be accessible, otherwise it alienates those who cannot access it. Culture which is inaccessible to a certain class of person, be it because of their race, gender, etc., will ultimate exclude and divide, and this feels like the exact opposite point of culture in the first place. Music, film, TV, whichever the medium, surely should concern itself with bringing people together and not driving them apart.

Music (in our opinion) represents the best of society’s ability to create. So in that sense, it’s vitally important that music embodies positive progression. If music (or any creative medium) fails to do this, it will become a relic of the past that ultimately fails to adapt with the times.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? Please share a story or example for each.

Frank — if you want to be a musician, or work in music generally, don’t go to university. Go to music college or just go straight into music after finishing at school — It took me years to find the rest of the band and get going with everything, and this all would have happened so much more easily if I’d gone about things the right way after school.

Kieran — In a similar vein, I wish someone had told me not to constantly feel the need to have a backup plan. Not studying music at uni, as frank said, is one example of me reassuring myself that if everything fell through I could still, in my case, be a psychologist. I only wasted time doing that because eventually you realize you’re only happy doing what you love anyway.

Jenna — Similar to the guys, I wish I had been told from a younger age that it’s absolutely not a waste of time to pursue a creative subject as a career. In most cases it’s reinforced from a young age that you have to pursue something substantial and inherently academic and I spent a long time fighting it. But if it’s not what you love, you’ll likely struggle to find happiness in it.

Josh — I wish someone told me how important it is to just constantly be around people, networking is a huge thing in the industry. Go to gigs, go to events, mix and mingle with people around the scene. You walk away with some great like-minded friends and a general knowledge of the industry around you.

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

Do anything you can to avoid working multiple jobs for too long. This is so hard with music as it’s obviously terribly paid for the earlier years. We’re still at a point where we are having to work but we can actively feel ourselves burning out already. However, for as long as working multiple jobs are necessary, it is definitely best to split up jobs amongst the band so everything is more manageable. As long as everyone communicates, that really helps. Harder ask for a solo artist though…!

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Jenna — Besides my family, who are my biggest support without a doubt, musically and creatively speaking I have a lot to owe to my first vocal coach and her husband (A music tutor, also). Two people which remain in my life although at a distance and were encouraging, supportive and inspiring to me from a really young age. My vocal teacher saw something in my abilities and continuously encouraged me to pursue them throughout my teens and even now. Her husband also helped me out with some of my college coursework, which I likely would have failed without that help.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Jenna — Something my mum has always said to me from a young age, which sticks with me on a daily basis is “it’s all a part of the tapestry of life”. It may not sound like much, but it reminds me to look at the bigger picture. To see the beauty in mistakes and that even though things may seem too challenging to overcome, you’ve done it before and you can do it again. I sort of envision this tapestry growing each day and every addition is intentional in its own right.

Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them.

Kieran- If I had to pick one it would be Justin Vernon! He has had a huge influence on me in terms of his music/production style. I’ve incorporated so much of what I’ve learnt from him into Bleach Labs sound too. We all agree if there is anyone in the world we would want to collaborate with, it would be Justin, so perhaps that’s something we could discuss over breakfast.

How can our readers follow you online?

We have all the usual socials! Check them out via our website- https://www.bleachlab.com/

This was very meaningful, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!